There are a number of places where it is necessary or desirable to burn off excess natural gas or other flammable gases. The oil and natural gas industries both do burns in the drilling and refining processes. A common place where excess natural gas needs to be burned off is in high-pressure gas well systems, which are well known in the art. A standard part of the operation of these systems is to reduce excess gas pressure by burning off excess gas, which is a frequent occurrence. A number of known systems are used presently used to burn off the excess gas. A standard design of the combustors used is to have a standard burner placed at the bottom of a simple chimney or stack. An air intake hole is cut in the stack below the burner to allow air to continually feed the flame.
These systems have a number of problems, particularly in extreme conditions. Conditions that cause problems for these prior art systems include high-altitude, large temperature ranges, variable wind speed, low wind speed, and burn off gas flow rates that range from very low to very high (80 mcf/d). Any one of these conditions, or a combination of them, can cause the burner flame to be blown out, causing the excess gas to be vented directly into the atmosphere. In addition, many of these gas wells are in remote locations, where it is difficult to monitor the combustor and hard to send someone out to re-light the burner.
Another problem that can occur is incomplete combustion of the gasses. As gas flow increases, the draft through the air intake hole and up the chimney increases, and incomplete combustion of the gas occurs, also resulting in gas being released into the atmosphere.
With a single hulled chimney design, the chimney can get very hot during use. If the chimney is not insulated, this can cause brush fires in remote locations as dead plant material, like tumble weeds, are blown up against the chimney. The chimneys can be insulated, but the insulation material is often expensive and can often be harmful to the environment itself.
The present invention provides for reduce chances of flame blowout, more complete combustion and cooler chimneys.